Windows XP sp 2

[Mooney]

Well, I recently discovered that developers hate Windows XP sp 1 now, what with PCSX2 running better on sp2 and the WMP 11 beta as well, I just had the thought of upgrading. But, I've heard it can be... evil. So could someone tell me about this Windows Firewall thang and what I should do in order to keep using Bittorrent, P2P, and online gaming?

[Robert]

Firstly there's the Security Center which is a pain in the ass. But since it's a service you can turn it off.

 

The firewall prevents all incoming connections except for what you allow. It doesn't prevent outgoing though. It works by allowing any communication from the executables you allow to contact the outside world.

 

The evil thing with sp2 is that it only allows 10 simultaneous TCP streams at one time. This can impact multiple torrents. There's a simple patch to fix it though.

[Mooney]

And where would one find this patch?

[Robert]

Here -> http://lvllord.de/

[Mooney]

Thanks for the link! Now, before I upgrade: About a year ago when my Mom was getting help from tech support to install our SBC Yahoo! DSL, he told her NOT to upgrade to sp2. Did he know what he was talking about? Or was he just stupid? Is there anything else I should know about sp2?

[Agozer]

he told her NOT to upgrade to sp2. Did he know what he was talking about? Or was he just stupid? Is there anything else I should know about sp2?

Which is why I haven't upgraded either. I don't really know where this uneasiness stems from but I know that a couple of my friends had to reinstall the OS because SP2 flocked their system sideways.

[Weirdy]

I've never had any problems at all with sp2. In fact, I recommend upgrading for compatability sake (so that programs won't biitch about it in the near future).

[Mooney]

I recommend upgrading for compatability sake (so that programs won't biitch about it in the near future).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's why I considered it in the first place. I dunno... I think I'm gonna take the risk and just DO IT. ...Maybe I'll back up my entire hard drive first.

Edited July 17, 2006 by Mooney

[Agozer]

I recommend upgrading for compatability sake (so that programs won't biitch about it in the near future).

That's why I considered it in the first place. I dunno... I think I'm gonna take the risk and just DO IT. ...Maybe I'll back up my entire hard drive first.

Nah, just make a recovery spot so you can rollback any changes that SP2 made.

 

I'll probably upgrade sometime as well, but certainly not yet. Do tell me how it went after you've done it.

[ken_cinder]

Same here, SP2 is fine as long as you disable the security center, and set that damn DEP thing to disabled in your Boot.ini (For those who want to do so, put this in your Boot.ini line for XP BEFORE the fastdetect option.....)

 

/noexecute=AlwaysOff

[Weirdy]

so on my boot.ini, I would change

 

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

to

 

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=AlwaysOff /fastdetect

 

?